JOHANN ALBERS

By Mildred Bueligen

“Free land west!” and a dream to start a church community were probably the most important facts that were to lead Johann Albers in 1884 to a very different type of life-style. (1)

Johann Albers was born near Hannover, Germany on November 23, 1834. He immigrated to America in 1869 or 1870, with his sister, Dorothea and Margaretha Wegener. They first lived for a time in Lansing, Iowa where Johann and Margaretha were married in 1870. Here their son Henry was also born. While there, Johann worked on a farm and Margaretha worked in a hotel. It was some time after Henry’s birth (October 17, 1871), that they moved to the Tinley Park area near Chicago, where Johann rented a farm from a Mr. Tinley. It was here, too, that the rest of his children were born: Anna, 1873; John F., 1875; Fred W., 1878; George, 1879; Ted, 1881; and Christ, 1884? (2)

It was spring in Chicago and supposedly Johann had his crop planted. Perhaps this added fact—that this crop- this farm- was not his to someday leave to his family—multiplied the reason Johann took his son Henry (12), and hopped the train “west”. Arriving in New Salem, they took a lumber wagon and headed north toward the Hazen country. Here he selected 160 acres and planned to file claim to them. In doing so, he discovered someone else had already claimed them. He thus headed back south and chose three quarters of what he called “ good land” about eighteen miles north of New Salem. Having done this, he and his son Henry returned to Chicago and his, no doubt, anxious family. (3) Whatever Johann did the rest of the summer, we are certain of two things. He cared for his rented farm, harvesting, etc., and more important, he did some advertising for himself. He tried to convince friends and relatives to join him in his venture west. (4)

On September 14 or 15 of 1884, after the harvesting was completed, Johann, his wife and family left. (5) If ever, there were feelings of uncertainty, uneasiness, loneliness, and desperation, I wonder if this wife and mother didn’t experience all of them on leaving Chicago with her family of youngsters and especially a baby of only two months. However, Johann, family, supplies and a few friends arrived in New Salem the fall of 1884.

Those friends who are believed to have accompanied Johann Albers west were Christian Bornemann and William and Henry Rabe. (6) They had all previously worked on dairy farms in the Chicago area. William picked his homestead site, erected a sod house, and then possibly returned to Chicago for the winter. Henry possibly worked on the railroad out of New Salem those first years, but he did take out a small tract of land and erected a sod house on it. Christian Bornemann also worked in New Salem at different intervals; however, he still spent much time with the Johann Albers family. (7)

Because they had built no house this first fall, the Albers family (and many times Christian Bornemann), spent the winter of ’84-85 at the John Windhorst home eleven miles north of New Salem. (8) Here at the Windhorst’s in midwinter, Johann spent much time behind the kitchen stove holding baby Christ in an effort to keep him warm. Here also during the cold winter, Johann lost one horse and one cow. Thus it was that come spring, he convinced Christian Bornemann to return to Chicago to get another of each, and again to convince friends to come to Dakota Territory and join them. (9)

Perhaps it was that Johann’s cousin John D. Albers accompanied Christian Bornemann back to Dakota Territory. We are certain that early spring of ‘85, John D., picked his homestead site and under the supervision of Christian Bornemann, his house was the first completed in the community. In this house the Johann Albers family lived till the following spring when their own was completed. (10)

Other friends and relatives coming in ’85 were Dietrich and Dorothea Henke (just married in March); Eleanora Stege Rabe, who had married William; Johann’s brother Henry, and his wife and family of seven children (the youngest born in April ’85). This ’85 census of the little settlement numbers twenty-four, not including the first two babies born in the “wilderness”. William Rabe’s, Maria Dorothea Louise was the first white child born in Oliver County Dakota Territory (August 23); (11) and Herman William, son of the Dietrich Henke’s (born December 18, 1885) was the first white male child. (12) In the years ’86-87, four more families of relatives and friends added to their number. (13)

Because Johann had wanted to start a church wherever he settled, it was inevitable that the pioneers would begin with services every Sunday in one of their homes. This they did, weather permitting, with Johann many times reading the scriptures and leading in prayer. (14)

These early pioneers felt fortunate that they were sought out by traveling preachers or “reisenprediger” from Minnesota and South Dakota. As early as March, 1886, they had been served by such pastors. (15) Because these traveling preachers had come from such distances, they usually stayed for several days. During this time they conducted Sunday services, baptized infants, performed weddings, visited families and instructed the school age children in catechism and other subjects, all German. (16) Because of these regular visits and more important, because these pioneer parents realized the importance of the spiritual education of their children, they were to celebrate with their first confirmation class as early as August 19, 1888. (17)

As previously stated, services were first held in the homes. Starting sometime in 1892, they were held in the district school until a church was built in 1900. (18) Hannover was not to have a resident pastor until 1889, in the person of Albert F. W. Bartz. (19) He stayed at the Johann Albers home and spent many evenings studying the scriptures with him. (20) Although Pastor Bartz stayed for only a short time, the Hannover community must have remained very dear to him because he returned many times from Alexandria, Minnesota to visit and preach. (21)

Johann, along with the little settlement, experienced many hardships those very first years; extreme poverty, drought, hailstorms, grasshoppers; but what they feared most were the prairie fires and the Indians. (22) Mrs. Albers, before retiring every evening, would spend several moments scanning the horizon hoping not to see smoke (23) On two occasions all the settlers left for Mandan because of Indian scares. On the one occasion, a rider had come out at midnight to notify the pioneers. (24)

It seems most obvious that these pioneers had from the very beginnings referred to their little settlement as Hannover, their German birthplace. However, they did, up till 1888, receive their mail in New Salem, and it was addressed as such. It was on April 28, 1888, that Johann’s brother Henry was appointed the first postmaster of Hannover, Dakota Territory. (25)

An account by one of the “traveling preachers: related so much to me about Hannover in 1892, and confirmed the fact that Henry Albers first operated the post office in his three room house that I chose to include parts of it:

The week before Christmas in the year 1892, I went to North Dakota. It was bitter cold, 30 to 40 degrees below zero…I left Aberdeen…on the Chicago Northwestern…the train was a mixed train—passenger and freight combined, and stopped at every station along the line… The stove in the passenger car was kept red hot all the time, and I sat behind it….

In the Jamestown depot I saw for the first time real Indians. There were dozens of them in their own Indian blankets, conversing in their Indian language. I noticed how they ate raw meat and drank one cup of coffee after another…. About 4 A.M. the coast to coast overland heavy train of the Northern Pacific came along…which I boarded…and at Salem I left that grand train. At Salem I had to wait in a general store…for my man to arrive and he finally arrived in a double box lumber wagon…We started out that afternoon…we reached our destination past midnight. As soon as we arrived at the farmhouse which was comfortably heated by N. D. coals…we had an early breakfast. This farmhouse was also Uncle Sam’s Post Office and a sort of stopover for farmers who lived still fifty miles farther away from Salem. The land lord showed me my room—he had one reserved for me out of three rooms which constituted the “hotel”. Dozens of men were sleeping on the kitchen floor that night to start early for their homes. My room was the front room and spare room of the house but was filled with wheat…A ladder reached to the top of the wheat and a bed was made for me on top of that…. On Saturday I taught thirty children in the public school house their catechism, bible history, and Christmas hymns. On Sunday I preached my first Christmas sermon….I received a Christmas collection of $56.38. I have never met any more friendly, more sociable and kind people than those in N.D. (26)

From the Commissioners Proceedings of July 14, 1890:

“The petition of John Albers and others representing that they had thirty children of school age who were deprived of school privileges—also possessed the required sum

of assessable property and asked for the formation of a School District. Petition granted. (27)

This represented the third district in the county. School sessions were first held in Henry Rabe’s sod shack. In 1891they were held in a home vacated by a family from Minnesota who stayed for only a short time. This burned in a prairie fire the same year, and in 1892, a school house was erected. (28) This same year (1892), school was taught fifty-eight days in each of the two schools with eighty-three percent in attendance. Total expenses for that same year were $418.82. (29) Even before the school district was formed, the church had hired students of theology who had taught their children in religion, and secular subjects. This they tried to keep up. Thus when the public teachers weren’t teaching, the teacher of theology or the pastor was. (Public school held sessions only about three months in a year.)

In 1899, Johann saw the organization of one of the state’s oldest cooperative creameries. R. T. Flint, who was the first buttermaker, later became the state’s dairy commissioner and commissioner of agriculture and labor. (30)

Johann Albers, in his elder years, must indeed have reflected many times over the years gone by—especially his venture with his son in 1884. His dream come true—Hannover—a church community indeed! No one can justly think of Hannover and its beginning without remember Johann Albers.

Today, much of what Johann possibly dreamed has passed away: the creamery closed its doors in the early 60’s; the grocery store closed in the early 70’s; the self-supporting parochial school in the fall of ’78; and the post office in December of ’78. However, the church, the core of the Hannover community, still thrives with over three hundred members.

Much more could indeed be said of Johann Albers, but perhaps some excerpts taken from his obituary say it best:

“When death early Sunday morning claimed John Albers of Hannover, Oliver County and Missouri Slope parted with one of its earliest, best known and most highly respected noble men. Men and women from both the adjoining counties of Morton and Mercer, as well as from every nook of Oliver, many of them white-haired and slow of step, but who more than a quarter of a century ago enjoyed the hospitality, shared the prosperity or adversity, partook of the charity of profited by the wise counsel of the deceased—were present to pay final tribute and look for the last time into the kindly old face of a tried and proved friend.

Pages could be written in testimony of the noble charity, the helpful neighborliness, the unwavering home devotion of the deceased, his assistance to other early day settlers and to many who came upon the scene later, but suffice it to say that his heart, his home and his purse were ever open to the needy. His body has been laid away, but in its stead is left a legacy of honor and respect that should prove a comfort to his survivors. (31)

1 Christian Albers, 1884

2 Christian Albers, 1884

3 Christian Albers, 1884

4 St. Peter’s 25^th Anniversary Booklet, 1889-1929, p.1.

5 Center Republican, January, 1926

6 Christian Albers.

7 New Salem 75^th Anniversary Book, 1883-1958, p. 80. Christian Albers 1884

8 New Salem 75^th Anniversary Book, 1883-1958, p. 78.

9 Christian Albers 1884

10 Christian Albers 1884

11 Oliver County School Records and Census. Baptism Certificates.

12 St. Peter’s Lutheran Church Records, 1895, 1900. Oliver County School Records and Census.

Baptism Certificates.

13. St. Peter’s Lutheran Church Records, p.1

14 St. Peter’s 75^th Anniversary Book, 1889-1964

15 Baptism Certificate of Herman W. Henke.

Lambert J. Mehl, Missouri Grows to Maturity in North Dakota.

16 Ernst Bruno Meischner, My Autobiography, p.7.

17 Confirmation certificates of

Dora Albers, H. H. Albers, and Anna Albers

18 Christian Albers, 1884. Louis Henke, 1886.

Amelia Oestrich, 1888. Anna Maier, 1893.

Kiess, F. A., My experience in the Mission Field of South Dakota, p. 19.

19 Concordia Historical Institute, Dept. of Archives and History, St. Louis Missouri

20 St. Peter’s 25^th Anniversary Booklet, 1889-1929, p.1.

21 Confirmation and Baptism Certificates.

22 St. Peter’s 75^th Anniversary Book, 1889-1964

23 Christian Albers, 1884; Louis Henke, 1886.

24 Mrs. Anna Albers, 1884; Christian Albers, 1884; Louis Henke, 1886; Amelia Oestrich, 1888;

Anna Maier, 1893.

25 General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, Washington D. C.

26 Kiess, F. A., My Experiences In the Mission Field of South Dakota, 1892-1897 pp. 18-19.

27 Oliver County Commissioners Proceedings, 1885-1900.

28 Christian Albers, 1884. Louis Henke, 1886

29 Oliver County School Records and Census.

30. “Hazen Star”, 1949

31. “Center Republican”, Nov. 21, 1915.

Submitted by Cece Albers, with permission by the author, Mildred Bueligan.